Discharging system,battery dead not taking charge

Hi... New cub owner 1952 purchased cub with battery charged, system dicharging battery ran cub for a day, tried to charge battery 6volt positive ground no luck, at beginning battery read 6.2 volts now reads 4.29 cub starts fine with crank any suggestions would be appreicated,went through repolarizing process. John

Re: Discharging system,battery dead not taking charge

Wed May 22, 2013 9:05 am

A little more info would help, fist are you sure it has a 6 volt battery installed. Many sellers will stick a cheap 12 volt battery in a 6 volt cub and charge it good to hide problems such as corroded cables, etc. Do you know if it has a voltage regulator or a cutout on it? If those are mounted on top of the generator it is sometimes hard to tell without removing the hood. As a side item, does it have a magneto or a distributor?

Re: Discharging system,battery dead not taking charge

Wed May 22, 2013 10:00 am

Yes 6v batt. Distributor, coil, vol reg on flat plate not on generator when purchased it would start with battery I tried charging battery with leads on no luck have cables off today and charger on will see if any difference when I get home, thanks for reply John

Re: Discharging system,battery dead not taking charge

Wed May 22, 2013 11:56 am

Take it to Autozone or O'Reilly's and ask them to load test the battery.

Re: Discharging system,battery dead not taking charge

Wed May 22, 2013 12:24 pm

Pay no attention to "ground" when charging the battery. After so many years, you can't trust that it is what it's supposed to be. Go straight to the source:

Look at the battery itself. Connect the red clip from the charger to the post marked "+" on the battery. Connect the black clip from the charger to the post marked "-" on the battery.

If it went from 6.2 to 4.23, you connected the charger up backwards and are DIScharging the battery.

Re: Discharging system,battery dead not taking charge

Wed May 22, 2013 12:27 pm

to what Matt said.

OK, that is pretty much what it's original configuration would have been but after 50 years they are some times quite different. Once the battery is charged, run it a while and then follow the steps in the first link I posted earlier, it is a very good procedure.